Past Episodes

26 April 2009

The Billings And Their Method

Summary

After nearly 50 years of public life, Dr Evelyn Billings is planning her retirement. Together with her husband, the late Dr John Billings, Lyn Billings was the worldwide face of the Billings Method – arguably the world’s most famous natural family planning tool. The Catholic couple’s five decade crusade to spread their method globally earned them powerful friends, in the Catholic Church and the Chinese government, and enemies too. This program examines their work, extraordinary impact and legacy.

Story

Let us imagine two houses. In each of them lives a happily married young couple.They are very much in love and their conjugal relationship is good. As a result they have a child, fine. However if too many children arrive it can be harmful to the children and the mother

Dr Lyn BillingsWe had the answer. We said that there is no need for the pill. This method will do it.

NarrationFor over fifty years Dr Lyn Billings and her late husband dr john billings, have been on a mission: to take their radical family planning method to the world.

But the world was changing…

Dr Lyn BillingsThere was a lot of opposition to it. It was the 60s you know and what a volatile time that was.

NarrationNow in an era of contraceptive choice, does the world still need the billings method?

At the age of 90, dr lyn billings is still on the go.

It’s been an all-consuming passion you might say. When you see the value of a thing. Its not hard to just keep on doing it.

NarrationLyn and her late husband, john pioneered the billings method, a way of controlling fertility naturally.Together they made it a household name around the world.

Today the headquarters for the global billings network is in melbourne’s eastern suburbs.

There’s little hard data but the billings group claims over 50 million couples worldwide have used their method.

Dr Lyn BillingsThat shows the versatility of the method really– it doesn’t’ depend on doctors at all though it did depend on a couple of doctors initially, didn’t it?

NarrationVanessa and Vance are new recruits to the billings method.

Recently married, they want to live as devout Catholics and that means no artificial contraception.

VanceAs Catholics you are meant to love life because it is a gift (and)// T7, 2100: As part of our faith we see that contraception is preventing life.

NarrationVanessa and Vance are relying on the billings method to plan their family.

Kerry BourkeAbout 95% of women can pick up their fertility in one cycle. So one month or one initial instruction would usually be enough for them to be able to identify their peak time of fertility and their infertile times.

NarrationAccording to the Billings Method, a woman can tell if she’s fertile or infertile by checking her vaginal mucus.

If a woman wants to avoid pregnancy, she has to abstain from sex for about a week in her fertile time and during menstruation.

Vanessa HerediaYou have to be in a committed relationship to make it work. // otherwise it can be difficult. But I feel that the benefits and the relationship that’s helping us create as a couple, it’s definitely worth the effort for sure.

Dr Lyn BillingsAnd that’s what marriage is about. Living together in peace and co-operation and harmony.

John BillingsThe teaching of what we could call the intimate detail of the mucus pattern is best carried out by women. It’s ideally a woman to woman exercise.

NarrationThe billings partnership began nearly 70 years ago… as a love story…

Evelyn Thomas and John Billings met as students at Melbourne university’s school of medicine.

Dr Lyn BillingsAnd I met him in the anatomy school. He saw me first over a row of dead bodies. And well I was well and truly alive so that was an advantage I had. He asked me to a ball and so that’s where it really began.

Gorgeous picture of John in graphic drop box I knew he was very bright //. And he was very kind, and gentlemanly. All those things that a girl really needs in the man that she chooses.

NarrationWhen they married in 1943 Evelyn Billings, an Anglican, converted to Roman Catholicism.

Dr Lyn BillingsHe believed that the Catholic Church had the authority and had the truth… He couldn’t give it up…no way could he give that faith up. Well I wasn’t giving anything up. I was taking on a whole heap more…I always loved children, always loved babies…We wanted to have a big family and we did.

NarrationThroughout the 40s and 50s the billings had 8 children, and adopted one.

They weren’t the only family expanding. The whole country was caught up in the post war baby boom.

But while the billings were happy…..others were struggling to support large families.

In Melbourne the catholic church turned to neurologist john billings, for help.

John BillingsMany of these couples had a very serious reason for postponing pregnancy so we felt a corresponding responsibility to provide them with a highly effective method.

NarrationWhile scientists in the northern hemisphere were developing the contraceptive pill… john billings began researching how to regulate fertility naturally…

Dr Lyn BillingsWhat book is this? What library is it in? and he found way back a 100 years ago this sign of the mucus secretion which accompanied ovulation and he thought well here is something. I’ll ask the women and see if they know anything about it.

NarrationThroughout the 50s and 60s John Billings interviewed 100s of Catholic women about the most intimate details of their lives: their menstrual cycles, mucus secretions, and pregnancies

He found the mucus was a reliable sign of ovulation and that couples who avoided sex around this time didn’t get pregnant.

By 1964, 3 years after the pill was introduced in Australia, Dr John Billings had turned his research into a method.

Dr Lyn BillingsThe World Health Organisation wanted to put our name on it but we thought it was a bit grandiose. They said well after all this is the Billings Method.

THE BILLINGS METHODNatural Family Planning video to explain the method The soil needs rain and moisture to be fertile – something similar is true of a woman’s body during the fertile phase of her monthly cycle when she is aware of moisture…

NarrationThe method was based on a radical idea: that each woman could take charge of her own fertility.

Every woman during her fertile years can be easily taught to recognize this sensation….and identify her fertile phase when the mucus secretion is present in her body.

NarrationIn most cycles there are two infertile phases and one fertile phase.

Next we have the start of moisture when it is possible for a seed to germinate. This is when women become potentially fertile.

NarrationWhen a woman feels a change her mucus it’s a sign the fertile phase has begun.

Slippery and lubricative was the peak day

NarrationAnother change in the mucus indicates the peak of fertility has passed.

During this time without moisture a woman cannot conceive.

NarrationBut the method got a mixed reception.

Dr Lyn BillingsThere was a lot of opposition to it. It was the 60s you know and what a volatile time that was…There was one group of people who accepted this because it empowered them….They were able to take charge of their own affairs. But then there was a largely male group who couldn’t possibly hand over all this part of their power, their control to the women.

NarrationBy now Lyn Billings was working with her husband.

As doctors, they knew they had to answer their critics with facts.They recruited scientists to put the method to the test.

Dr Henry Burger, a hormone specialist, was one.

The scientists measured women’s hormones to pinpoint the time of ovulation.

They then compared their estimate of the time of ovulation with the women’s.

The results made scientific history.

Henry BurgerI think what was striking to us was that women could actually so reliably identify when they were fertile. Here was somebody who had listened to many women, deduced what symptoms indicated they were fertile and that we were able to validate, well yes he’s correct.

NarrationHenry Burger and his wife jenny were also testing the method at home.

JennyWe were married in 1959. We both wanted four or five children, that was agreed.

HenryAt the time I was a Catholic who was very committed to following the church’s teachings…

NarrationThe burgers are now grandparents.

HenryWould you like water, milk or cordial?

NarrationBack in the 60s, as a young couple, they wanted to space the arrival of their children…

Jenny and Henry were using an early form of the method.

Jenny had to take her temperature daily, as well as chart her mucus and abstain from sex during fertile times.

Henry I found abstinence difficult. She found abstinence difficult, and she found the artificiality of having to live one’s love life by calendar as something which she found very difficult to deal with.

JennyIt wasn’t easy. But I suppose we did learn to respond and be very sensitive to each other’s needs. That was a good thing. 2700 But in a sense I disagreed with the approach. I thought this was a personal matter, not the church’s matter. But we lived like that for 13 years.

NarrationThe billings thought their time had come. By the late 60s Australians had embraced the pill and were getting a taste of sexual freedom.

But in 1968 Pope Paul 6th spoiled the party, with the papal encyclical Humanae Vitae…

To many Catholics’ surprise, it reinforced the ban on all forms of artificial contraception.

The Billings were ready and waiting.

Dr Lyn BillingsAnd we had the answer. We said that there is no need for the pill, there’s no need for contraception. This method will do it

John BillingsIts not easy to see new born babies as a threat but they are another weighty element in a dangerous equation. There are 8000.

NarrationIn the 60s, people around the world were alarmed by the population explosion and by food shortages in developing countries.

Many people therefore have developed an obsessional drive to limit human fertility – to prevent conceptions and even to prevent births by any means at all which can be devised.

Dr Lyn BillingsThey were anti population. They were in the developing countries and they were trying to control the numbers. So they were out to prevent conception, which was quite different to our attitude where we believed people should have the information and make up their own minds.

NarrationBy the 70s the method had been simplifed… and international interest was growing.

The United Nations set up a five nation trial to test it in the field.

It was run by Henry Burger…and it had mixed results.

For those couples who followed the rules the pregnancy rates were on the low side.

But for couples who didn’t follow the billings rules the pregnancy rates were high - around 20 women in a hundred became pregnant.

There’s argument about whether that’s the fault of the method.

Henry BurgerThe practical outcome of the application of the method…is still that there is a significant pregnancy rate.

Kerry Bourke The Billings Method gives you information – it in itself does nothing to either stop or to make conception happen. It’s the actions of the people that actually make it happen.

Henry BurgerThat’s an intrinsic part of the method as far as I am concerned which does depend heavily on human behaviour and multiple factors in a couple’s relationship.

NarrationLike many catholics, the Burgers became disillusioned with the church’s position on contraception.

Henry BurgerAnd I ultimately became convinced that I couldn’t continue to conscientiously follow that rule.

NarrationAfter 13 years and five children, they gave up on the Billings Method.

JennyHe decided that using the method was not for us anymore ..so ..we were both in agreement that I would go on the pill.

Henry BurgerI think it’s largely an outdated philosophy and it is mainly I think people following Catholic moral teaching, who will be committed and who will continue to need to use a method like that.

NarrationBut the billings had confidence in their method –and they were taking it to the world.

Dr Lyn BillingsPeople thought we were, this was a Catholic method. But of course it’s a biological method. Whether they are Muslim, Hindu or Chinese or whatever. It doesn’t matter. We just want them to know about themselves and to use this natural thing to their own advantage.

NarrationThe place where they’ve had most success is china….the world’s most populous country.

As china opened up to the world in the 80s it welcomed the Billings.

Since then they’ve trained over 40 000 teachers …and claim over 4 million couples have used the method.

John BillingsThese are all our most important teaching materials in English and now they’ve been translated into Chinese.

Dr Lyn BillingsIt has permeated the culture of China. It was a big thing. I think if you ask any of our teachers you know they just feel enormously privileged to be able to help their fellow women. It’s been a big thing.

NarrationThe Catholic Church has honoured the Billings, making John a Papal Knight and Evelyn a Papal Dame.

She’s met three Popes, including Benedict 16.

Dr Lyn BillingsHe’s very nice. He’s short, he’s about my height. We were able to talk eye to eye.

NarrationIn 2007, after 64 years of marriage, one half of the Billings partnership died....

Obituaries around the world celebrated John Billings achievements.

Dr Lyn BillingsPeople used to ask us this you know what do you do it for? And we would just simply say well we are doctors. It is our job to see that people are healthy and happy. We were elated again and again and again because this it’s a marvelous thing to see a stressed out miserable couple become happy and we were happy ourselves with each other and our family. So we were really very well looked after.

NarrationIn Australia, artificial contraceptives are now the norm.

And the number of couples using the billings method is in decline.

Kerry BourkeUnfortunately, we would like to be a lot …busier that we are. When the volunteers of my era finish I’m concerned that there won’t be people to keep this work going.

I think it will survive but that’s sort of blind faith. But I just believe that if it meant to survive it will survive.

NarrationLyn Billings is putting her faith in the method’s natural advantages.

Dr Lyn BillingsBut of course essentially it’s very cheap. We don’t sell the product, the mucus is free. And it runs mostly on good will.

NarrationVanessa is the latest recruit to the Billings cause.

She’s now training to be a Billings teacher….and not only for religious reasons.

VanessaAs a woman I think its knowledge that we can learn so much about. Not only about family planning but even just about our own health and our bodies.

NarrationVanessa is part of a new wave…

She wants to use the method not to avoid pregnancy but to help her conceive…

Dr Lyn BillingsOf course the success that we have had with helping people having difficulties to conceive, that’s been just wonderful. To be able to teach people to find the most fertile part in the cycle and use that time for intercourse to produce a child. That’s a tremendous thrill of course.